Homesteading, suburban style

This is our first flower on our watermelon! We are growing "Stars and Moons" watermelon. It is mostly an academic exercise, because I am not the biggest watermelon fan, but Andrew and the kids like it. I'll be pleasantly surprised if we get any!

We are also attempting raspberries this year. We transplanted 2 dozen from Farmer Leo earlier this spring (a little late, should have done it in the fall). The biggest plant there though is a wild black raspberry bush that I am keeping my eye on! Should make wonderful fruit.

And speaking of fruit, we've discovered a mulberry tree on the property. Alas, mulberry season is almost over, but we are still going to be able to get enough to freeze for the winter. I pulled my first garlic of the season and it is beautiful. Great big fat bulbs that you can smell a mile away. And homemade garlic is so much spicer than even the good Gilroy, CA stuff we can get at Costco. And the bland Chinese imports that are in most grocery stores doesn't even compare.

And the preservation season has begun! We made, I kid you not, lettuce soup today. It involves lettuce and peas and onions and a cuisinart. It was fabulous and mostly tasted of spinach dip. We froze half and will have the rest some October evening when we are longing for some greenery. I've also frozen a batch of raspberries, and we are going to make our first batch of pesto tomorrow. We'll eat some and freeze some. It's going to be collard and olive pesto, should be interesting.

I also bought my first set of quart jars for canning. Farmer Leo lent us his canning equipment and we are going to go to town. This is the year! We are going to start with peaches, and then come August, we are going to be up to our armpits in tomatoes. My goal is to not buy any canned tomates. We'll see how that works out!